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Quadriga Audio-Archiving Solution
Quadriga is a commercial audio-archiving workstation for the automated mass transfer of legacy sound carriers to digital storage systems. The unique aspect of the system lies in the real-time inspection of the audio during the transfer process, statistical reports of which are generated and stored with other meta data within the resulting audio file. History Traditional broadcast and sound archives have proven over the years to be extremely labor intensive to maintain and manage. This is due in part to the personnel intensive nature of the extremely important quality control process associated with maintaining the highest possible technical standards. As broadcasting migrated from analog to digital technology, broadcasters were forced to digitize analog assets – something that has been on-going since the early 1990’s. This transition from single-sound-carriers to everlasting digital data in the form of sound files represents the evolution from the past to the future – a significant step towards higher quality and more accessible sound archives. Unlike most analog media, digital sound files can be stored in large-scale file servers, which are accessible via the broadcasters network, and / or via the internet. The most critical stage in the process is the original transfer from the analog to the digital domain, and failure to execute this properly significantly compromises the integrity of the archive. This fact forced broadcasters and archives to seek out technology that would be capable of managing the analog to digital transfer process, while maintaining the highest possible level of quality control. To this end, a sophisticated hardware and software based solution called Quadriga was developed in 1998 by Bremen, Germany based “Cube-Tec International GmbH”, in close cooperation with the “Institut für Rundfunktechnik” (IRT) and the German “public broadcasting”. Quadriga is a registered trademark of IRT and is exclusively marketed by Cube-Tec International. The name Quadriga is derived from “'QU'ality from 'A'nalog to 'D'igital 'RIG'orously 'A'nalyzed”. Quadriga is used internationally by broadcasting companies, archives and music enterprises. Functionality If used during the initial transfer, Quadriga automates the digitization process while simultaneously analyzing the incoming audio stream for any anomalies or irregularities – all of which are logged into a quality report. For digital files that were transferred without Quadriga, the system can be used to analyze those files for detection of the same anomalies and the production of the quality report, which can be checked in real time via audio playback and / or visually inspecting the waveform. The quality reports, in addition to other meta data information such as source sound carriers and historical data are maintained as part of the digital sound file. Quadriga is compatible with any existing “Media Asset Management” system and easily adapts to its networking and database configuration. Also relevant to digitized archives are two newly developed technologies from Cube-Tec called Dobbin and Cube-Workflow. These sophisticated technologies can be used to fully automate file management, rights management, and media processing functions. Typically labor intensive processes such as normalization, sample-rate conversion, format conversion, codec encoding / trans-coding, water-marking, audio restoration, and other signal processing functions are handled as an off-line automated process. Supported Devices *reel-to-reel tape machines *tape recorders *turntables *digital audio tape (R-DAT) *MiniDisc *9-pin devices External links *Institut für Rundfunktechnik (official webpage) *Quadriga (official webpage) Category:Music industry Category:Sound archives de:Quadriga Audio-Archivlösung